Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-lnqnp Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-12T14:41:58.520Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Isotopic insights into the jar-and-coffin mortuary ritual of the Cardamom Mountains, Cambodia

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  19 October 2020

Louise Shewan*
Affiliation:
School of Earth Sciences, University of Melbourne, Australia
Richard Armstrong
Affiliation:
Research School of Earth Sciences, The Australian National University, Australia
Dougald O’Reilly
Affiliation:
School of Archaeology and Anthropology, The Australian National University, Australia
Siân Halcrow
Affiliation:
Department of Anatomy, University of Otago, New Zealand
Nancy Beavan
Affiliation:
Institute of Environmental Science and Research Limited, Porirua, New Zealand
Tep Sokha
Affiliation:
Ceramic Conservation Laboratory, Phnom Penh, Cambodia
*
*Author for correspondence: ✉ louise.shewan@unimelb.edu.au

Abstract

The use of coffins and jars as funerary receptacles was common across Southeast Asia. During the fifteenth to seventeenth centuries AD, cremation was the dominant mortuary tradition on the Angkorian plains, but in the Cardamom Mountains to the south, contemporaneous groups practised a unique burial tradition involving the deposition of un-cremated bone in exposed ceramic vessels and log coffins. The authors present the first geochemical analysis of individuals from this highland culture, specifically the site of Phnom Pel. The childhood diets of those interred in jars and coffins may have been sourced from different areas within the Cardamom Mountains, suggesting that the individuals came from discrete groups.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © The Author(s), 2020. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of Antiquity Publications Ltd

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Asian Development Bank. 2012. Greater Mekong subregion of the environment atlas (2nd edition). Manila: Asian Development Bank. Available at: https://www.adb.org/sites/default/files/publication/30074/gms-atlas-environment-2nd-edition.pdf (accessed 10 September 2020).Google Scholar
Beavan, N. et al. 2012. Radiocarbon dates from jar and coffin burials of the Cardamom Mountains reveal a unique mortuary ritual in Cambodia's Late to Post-Angkor period (15th–17th centuries AD). Radiocarbon 54: 122. https://doi.org/10.2458/azu_js_rc.v54i1.15828CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Beavan, N., Hamilton, D., Sokha, T. & Sayle, K.. 2015. Radiocarbon dates from the highland jar and coffin burial site of Phnom Khnang Peung, Cardamom Mountains, Cambodia. Radiocarbon 57: 1531. https://doi.org/10.2458/azu_rc.57.18194CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bellwood, P. 2017. First islanders: prehistory and human migration in Island Southeast Asia. New York: Wiley Blackwell. https://doi.org/10.1002/9781119251583CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bentley, R.A. 2006. Strontium isotopes from the earth to the archaeological skeleton: a review. Journal of Archaeological Method and Theory 13: 135–87. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10816-006-9009-xCrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bonatz, D. 2012. A highland perspective on the archaeology and settlement history of Sumatra. Archipel 84: 3581. https://doi.org/10.3406/arch.2012.4361CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bronson, B. 1977. Exchange at the upstream and downstream ends: notes toward a functional model of the coastal state in Southeast Asia, in Hutterer, K.L. (ed.) Economic exchange and social interaction in Southeast Asia: perspectives from prehistory, history and ethnography: 3952. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan.Google Scholar
Brown, R. 2004. The Ming Gap and shipwreck ceramics in Southeast Asia. Los Angeles: University of California.Google Scholar
Buikstra, J.E. & Ubelaker, D.H. (ed.). 1994. Standards for data collection from human skeletal remains (Arkansas Archeological Survey Research Series 4). Fayetteville: Arkansas Archaeological Survey.Google Scholar
Bulbeck, D. 2017. Traditions of jars as mortuary containers in the Indo-Malaysian archipelago, in Piper, P., Matsumura, H. & Bulbeck, D. (ed.) New perspectives in Southeast Asian and Pacific prehistory: 141–64. Canberra: ANU Press. https://doi.org/10.22459/TA45.03.2017.08CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Carter, A.K., Dussubieux, L. & Beavan, N.. 2016. Glass beads from 15th–17th century CE from jar burial sites in Cambodia's Cardamom Mountains. Archaeometry 58: 401–12. https://doi.org/10.1111/arcm.12183CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Carter, A.K., Stark, M.T., Quintus, S., Zhuang, Y., Wang, H., Heng, P. Piphal & Chhay, R.. 2019. Temple occupation and the tempo of collapse at Angkor Wat, Cambodia. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the USA 116: 12226–31. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1821879116CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Colani, M. 1935. Mégalithes du Haut-Laos (Publications de l'École française d'Extrême- Orient 25–26). Paris: École française d'Extrême-Orient.Google Scholar
Cort, L. 2017. Container jars from the Maenam Noi kilns, Thailand: use and reuse along maritime trade routes in Asia. Bulletin de l'Ecole française d'Extrême-Orient. 103: 267–96. https://doi.org/10.3406/befeo.2017.6252CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Courbin, P. 1988. La fouille du bassin du Sras Srang, in Dumarcay, J. & Courbin, P. (ed.) Documents graphiques de la Conservation d'Angkor, 1963–1973: 2144. Paris: École française d'Extrême-Orient.Google Scholar
Grave, P., Kealhofer, L., Beavan, N., Tep, S., Stark, M.T. & Ea, D.. 2019. The Southeast Asian water frontier: coastal trade and mid fifteenth century CE ‘hill tribe’ burials, south-eastern Cambodia. Archaeological and Anthropological Sciences 11: 5023–36. https://doi.org/10.1007/s12520-019-00842-3CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Halcrow, S.E. & Tayles, N.. 2011. The bioarchaeological investigation of children and childhood, in Agarwal, S.C. & Glencross, B. (ed.) Social bioarchaeology: 333–60. Chichester: Wiley Blackwell. https://doi.org/10.1002/9781444390537.ch12CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Halcrow, S.E., Harris, N.J., Beavan, N. & Buckley, H.R.. 2014. First bioarchaeological evidence of probable scurvy in Southeast Asia: multifactorial etiologies of vitamin C deficiency in a tropical environment. International Journal of Paleopathology 5: 6371. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijpp.2014.01.004CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Harris, N.J., Buckley, H.R., Halcrow, S.E., Kinaston, R.L., Foster, A., Simanjanuk, T. & Galipaud, J.-C.. 2016. Field anthropology in Southeast Asia and the Pacific, in Oxenham, M.F. & Buckley, H.R (ed.) The Routledge handbook of bioarchaeology in Southeast Asia and the Pacific Islands: 289310. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Harrisson, T. 1962. Borneo death. Bijdragen tot de Taal, Lan-en Volkenkunde 118: 141.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hendrickson, M. 2008. New evidence of brown glaze stoneware kilns along the East Road from Angkor. Bulletin of the Indo-Pacific Prehistory Association 28: 5256. https://doi.org/10.7152/bippa.v28i0.12015CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Higham, C. 2002. Early cultures of Mainland Southeast Asia. Bangkok: River.Google Scholar
Hillson, S. 1996. Dental anthropology. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Horr, D.A. 1959. Area 19: Southeast Asia, number. 1. COWA Survey. Cambridge: Council for Old World Archaeology.Google Scholar
Hotchkis, M. et al. 1994. 14C analyses at the ANTARES AMS Centre: dating the log coffins of northwest Thailand. Nuclear Instruments and Methods in Physics Research B 92(1–4): 2730. https://doi.org/10.1016/0168-583X(94)95968-4CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lloyd-Smith, L. 2013. The West Mouth Neolithic cemetery, Niah Cave, Sarawak. Proceedings of the Prehistoric Society 79: 105–36. https://doi.org/10.1017/ppr.2013.5CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Martin, M.A. 1997. Les Khmers Daeum ‘Khmers de l'origine’ (l’École Française d'Extrême-Orient Monographies 183). Paris: Pressés de l’École Française d'Extrême-Orient.Google Scholar
Maurer, A.-F., Galer, S.J.G., Knipper, C., Beierlein, L., Nunn, E.V., Peters, D., Tütken, T., Alt, K.W. & Schöne, B.R.. 2012. Bioavailable 87Sr/86Sr in different environmental samples: effects of anthropogenic contamination and implications for isoscapes in past migration studies. Science Total Environment 433: 216–29. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.scitotenv.2012.06.046CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Montgomery, J. 2010. Passports from the past: investigating human dispersals using strontium isotope analysis of tooth enamel. Annals of Human Biology 37: 325–46. https://doi.org/10.3109/03014461003649297CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Moorrees, C.F.A., Fanning, E.A. & Hunt, E.E.. 1963a. Age variation of formation stages for ten permanent teeth. Journal of Dental Research 42: 14901502. https://doi.org/10.1177/00220345630420062701CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Moorrees, C.F.A., Fanning, E.A. & Hunt, E.E.. 1963b. Formation and resorption of three deciduous teeth in children. American Journal of Physical Anthropology 21: 205–13. https://doi.org/10.1002/ajpa.1330210212hCrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mouret, C. 2004. Burials in caves, in Gunn, J. (ed.) Encyclopedia of caves and karst science: 345–49. New York: Taylor & Francis.Google Scholar
O'Reilly, D. & Shewan, L.. 2016. Prehistoric mortuary traditions in Cambodia, in Oxenham, M.F. & Buckley, H. (ed.) The Routledge handbook of bioarchaeology in Southeast Asia and the Pacific islands: 4567. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Raiber, M., Webb, J.A. & Bennetts, D.A.. 2009. Strontium isotopes as tracers to delineate aquifer interactions and the influence of rainfall in the basalt plains of southeastern Australia. Journal of Hydrology 367: 188–99. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jhydrol.2008.12.020CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Reinecke, A., Vin, L. & Heng, S.. 2009. The first golden civilization of Cambodia. Bonn: Thomas Muntzer.Google Scholar
Sayavongkhamdy, T. & Bellwood, P.. 2000. Recent archaeological research in Laos. Bulletin of the Indo-Pacific Prehistory Association 19: 101–10.Google Scholar
Scheuer, L. & Black, S.. 2000. Developmental juvenile osteology. San Diego: Academic. https://doi.org/10.1016/B978-012624000-9/50004-6Google Scholar
Shewan, L. & O'Reilly, D. (ed.). 2019. Madeleine Colani's megaliths of Upper Laos. Hong Kong: Barcaray International.Google Scholar
Shewan, L., O'Reilly, D. & Armstrong, R.. 2020. Baseline bioavailable strontium isotope values for the investigation of residential mobility and resource acquisition strategies in prehistoric Cambodia. Archaeometry 62: 810–26. https://doi.org/10.1111/arcm.12557CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sillen, A., Hall, G., Richardson, S. & Armstrong, R.. 1998. 87Sr/86Sr ratios in modern and fossil food-webs of the Sterkfontein Valley: implications for early hominid habitat preference. Geochimica et Cosmochimica Acta 62: 2463–73. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0016-7037(98)00182-3CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sørensen, P. 1973. Prehistoric iron implements from Thailand. Asian Perspectives 17: 134–73.Google Scholar
Tenazas, R.C.P. 1973. The boat-coffin burial complex in the Philippines and its relation to practices in Southeast Asia. The Philippine Quarterly of Culture and Society 1: 1925.Google Scholar
Tsuchiyama, Y. et al. 2016. Paleomagnetism of Late Jurassic to Early Cretaceous red beds from the Cardamom Mountains, south-western Cambodia: tectonic deformation of the Indochina Peninsula. Earth and Planetary Science Letters 434: 274–88. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.epsl.2015.11.045CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Vysotsky, V.I., Rodinikova, R.D. & Li, M.N.. 1994. The petroleum geology of Cambodia. Journal of Petroleum Geology 17: 195210. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1747-5457.1994.tb00126.xCrossRefGoogle Scholar
Willmes, M., Bataille, C.P., James, H.F., Moffat, I., Mcmorrow, L., Kinsley, L., Armstrong, R.A., Eggins, S. & Grün, R.. 2018. Mapping of bioavailable strontium isotope ratios in France for archaeological provenance studies. Applied Geochemistry 90: 7586. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.apgeochem.2017.12.025.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Zucker, E.M. 2007. Memory and (re)making moral order in the aftermath of violence in a highland Khmer village in Cambodia. Unpublished PhD dissertation, London School of Economics and Political Science.Google Scholar
Supplementary material: PDF

Shewan et al. supplementary material

Shewan et al. supplementary material

Download Shewan et al. supplementary material(PDF)
PDF 165.5 KB